Conscientious consumption and culture war

Feathers flying

RETURNING today to political news after a couple weeks spent moving house from Iowa City to Houston, I find that nothing both interesting and important has transpired in the interim. The presidential race is a bit of a nail-biter, for those of us who bite our nails in boredom. Even the Olympic medal-count contest between America and China is dull. Say what you will about the looming risk of total nuclear annihilation, it kept the Olympics interesting. Maybe it would help if China's numerous medal winners were cast more in the mould of Ivan Drago or the hulking East German lady swimmers of yore, because tiny synchronised divers just don't inspire the same enlivening sense of terrifying rivalry.

Olympics aside, I've kept abreast (so to speak) only of the Chick-fil-A controversy, thanks to the exceedingly thorough coverage afforded this most pressing issue by Houston's intrepid network-television news teams. Though several local "kiss-ins" were granted cursory coverage, for balance, the sight of lines of conservative Houstonians snaking around area Chick-fil-A franchises had our local news squads almost frothing with excitement. One elderly woman was captured on camera declaring Dan Cathy, Chick-fil-A's president, "my hero" for making a stand against same-sex marriage. Waiting in wilting heat to uphold family values and honour a hero by eating a chicken sandwich was really the least she could do.

It's my view that this sort of skirmish in the culture wars is an inevitable consequence of trends in "ethical consumption" and "corporate social responsibility". Conservatives sceptical of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) movement have often charged that CSR is a stalking horse for liberal causes that have failed to get traction through ordinary political channels. This charge finds some support, I think, in the fact that few in the media seem to see Chick-fil-A's Christian-influenced culture and business practices as an example of CSR, though obviously it is. Doesn't the demand that corporations act responsibly in the interests of society, in ways other than profit-seeking, directly imply that corporate leaders who find same-sex marriage socially irresponsible should do something or other to discourage it? Ian Reifowitz, writing in the Huffington Post, finds it "troubling" that Chick-fil-A prefers Christians as franchise owners, but rightly sees that the source of his unease when generalised may complicate CSR-like corporate policies:

Whether it's legal or illegal, I still find these company policies troubling, although it is a complex issue. Let's say there was a restaurant chain that decided to put out a statement saying: "In addition to our commitment to non-discrimination and equal treatment, we prefer franchise operators who share our commitment to progressive values." Would you be comfortable with that? Would it feel right morally to you?

That checks out morally for me. People can run their businesses according to whatever principles they prefer. It's just stupid business for owners and managers who want to sell their firm's goods and services to people who don't happen to share their morals or politics, especially in cultures in which consumers are increasingly expected to vote with their wallets.

Matters of moral truth aside, what's the difference between buying a little social justice with your coffee and buying a little Christian traditionalism with your chicken? There is no difference. Which speaks to my proposition that CSR, when married to norms of ethical consumption, will inevitably incite bouts of culture-war strife. CSR with honest moral content, as opposed to anodyne public-relations campaigns about "values", is a recipe for the politicisation of production and sales. But if we also promote politicised consumption, we're asking consumers to punish companies whose ideas about social responsibility clash with our own. Or, to put it another way, CSR that takes moral disagreement and diversity seriously—that really isn't a way of using corporations as instruments for the enactment of progressive social change that voters can't be convinced to support—asks companies with controversial ideas about social responsibility to screw over their owners and creditors and employees for...what?

I'd suggest the best arena for moral disagreement is not the marketplace, but our intellectual and democratic institutions. We hash out our disagreements, as best we can, in public deliberation. The outcome of this deliberation becomes input to official policymaking, which in turn determines the rules of the game for business. Businesses then seek profits within the scope of those rules (and the consensus rules of common decency), and consumers buy the products that best satisfy their preferences. If businesses want to impose on themselves other constraints, fine. But let's not ask them to do so. And if consumer preferences happen to range over the production chains and management philosophies behind the goods and services they buy, fine. But let's not ask them to have such pernsickety and political preferences. Of course, this lovely, welfare-maximising arrangement will from time to time break down. For example, when we lose faith in the capacity of our public institutions to reliably translate the results of honest democratic negotiation into policy. Or when old consensus rules of common decency lose general assent.

I live in Las Vegas and I am gay but I would have gone to Chick-fil-A to support it if there was one franchise in my town. I found unsettling and insulting the actions of the politicians who threatened with withholding permits because the owner of the company, in an interview, opined about marriage. It is not only about the First Amendment it is also about the fact that elected officials find easy to come in front of the public and comment on the actions of a private citizen that has not done anything illegal. Even more galling is the fact that mayors think that they are the embodiments of morals and opinion in their cities. Someone should tell them that they are but administrators not opinion makers, law givers and punishers of citizens who do not fit the mold set by the mayors ideological leanings. In New York, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn decided that her sexual orientation allows her to throw her public weight around and ask a private university, NYU, to evict the Chick-fil-A operating on campus. It is disconcerting when people who should be the sentinels of constitutional freedoms become little thought controllers. This was a public spat and we were able to see in the light of the day how some people in power would use their heft. I wonder how many times they use the same tactics in the shadow of their office pushing for their favorite business based on ideology or belief. Would Christine Quinn, once elected mayor of New York, she seems to be a shoe in, chase out of the city business whose owners do not believe, privately, in gay marriage even if they do not discriminate in their business interactions? Would there be a litmus test for business applying for permit? We must ask because after the Chick-fil-A controversy, when the curtain has been open to allow us to see the arrogance and lack of respect for the rights of others our politicians have shown, they would go back to act in the backrooms of their office and we will be the one to suffer from their actions.

It also seems to be an incredibly inefficient way of supporting your agenda. Anytime I handed a cup of fair-trade coffee to one of the bright-eyed liberal arts students at college, I thought "now, there is a price-insensitive consumer". Oh my! the mark-up we are charging you. If you care about the rainforest or random Colombians, then it makes sense to just give money to actual charities, rather than allow a business to charge you for the privilege. In the same way, I wonder why these devout geriatrics aren't just donating to these political causes themselves, rather than going through the rigamarole of having to use Chick-Fil-A as a middleman.

It's always worth remembering that idiotic insufferable self-righteousness is a bi-partisan pastime. In this time of partisan rancor, I think it's good to remember that we're all the same idiotic people.

"I'm going to define my morality and my personality around the products I buy!" - Every bumper and T-Shirt in America.

All in all, I see the ultimate triumph for liberals in this fight: conservatives will flock into this franchise and liberals will avoid it. Conservatives' life expectancy will be reduced and liberals will outlive them, hence outvote them. Take this, Karl Rove!

I'm not sure if we would be so happy to look the other way on this if Chick-a-fil was funnelling thousands of dollars a year to organisations working for the reintroduction of Segregation and Dan Cathy came out saying he believed traditional marriage was between people of the same race. I know its a stretch but I really think that Chick-a-fil is on the wrong side of history, I think 50 years from now these people will look very seedy to teenagers in a classroom shocked homosexuals were once denied equal rights in the same way those southern segregationists looked so sad and awful to me.

I'm also suprised that the Economist does not see the effectiveness of consumer choices when it comes to affecting behavior of companies, example from my life: As a kid in the 90s I was exposed to a lot of material on how my sneakers (and NIKE in particular) were made in brutal sweatshops by people not much older than me, now I refused to buy Nike and I tried to the best of my knowledge to avoid sweatshop goods, Nike to their credit took the criticisms to heart and has one of the most sophisticated supply chains of any apparel company, that avoids things like last minute production surges and sudden changes that make labour abuses inevitible. an effective change that was good for the consumer, workers and company. I am sure to some extant, in a consumer age, we vote with our pocketbook.

I too would prefer that political activity remain separate from commercial (and religious) activity. Intermingling threatens to defract and cloud market signals, reducing efficiency for both. But how is separation now possible when commercial institutions are explicitly given a voice on the political stage via the Citizens United decision? Commerce will now be evermore politicized and politics will be evermore commercialized, to the detriment of both. Chick Fil A is just the amuse bouche.

Yes, that's not a straw man at all. I'm sure there's a bunch of college professors are out there calling for the death of the 1% - at least in your fantasies.
Who's not allowing who to express their opinion? The left-wing is saying that if you express conservative views, you are their enemy and they are not going to support you or want you around. Nobody is upset that someone can say something they disagree with - they are upset that the other person holds that position.
I don't see how it's close-minded to disagree with someone or to follow your principles. Of course, those principles could be based on close-mindedness - but I think that's a problem of the right rather than the left.
But here I am arguing with a clear troll ... what's the moderation policy here?

The biggest problem with public discourse over Mr. Cathy's remarks and Chick-Fil-A's donations has been the overwhelming refusal to attack the roots of Mr. Cathy's beliefs. In our politically correct society people (wrongfully) assume that everyone should be entitled to believe what they want no matter how illogical or hateful it is. That simply isn't the case.

When Mr. Cathy claims to be a proponent of the Biblical definition of marriage, we should ask whether he is a proponent of the Biblical definition of slavery.

When he claims to be Christian, we should be comfortable asking him why then he has such difficulty with the quintessential Christian virtues of forgiveness and acceptance.

We should be fine asking why he feels that if God has forbade homosexuality, that is between anyone but God and homosexuals; Or how legislation imposing the Biblical definition of marriage is not tantamount to Sharia law.

We should be comfortable asking why it is that he feels that a translation of a translation of a compilation of writings written tens and hundreds of years after the events they depict seem likely to possess the absolute Truth. We should be comfortable asking about the physical and philosophical contradictions the Bible presents, as well as its glaring omissions.

I respect the faith of others, in so far as it represents beliefs they hold about unknowable questions for the purposes of consolation. I do not respect the implication that beliefs based on faith are comparable with convictions based on empirical evidence and reason- at least not when you are attempting to build a free and peaceful society.

In 2009, American Psychological Association rejected sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) as harmful with a 125-4 vote. The fact is when homosexual children are raised in homes, where SOCE is considered a viable option, they have a statistically higher suicide rate that translates into about 6 suicides a day in the USA. To be clear, cultures in the USA that support or promote SOCE are silently torturing 6 homosexuals to death each every day in the USA.

The current Chick-Fil-A controversy is no more about "freedom of speech" than the civil rights movement of the 50's and 60's that Rosa Parks inspired was about "bus seats". This is simply the striking point that caught the national media attention.

The real story behind the Chick-Fil-A protests can be teased out by paraphrasing their corporate attitude and comparing it to the parallel of a fictitious equivalent from the civil rights era. Simply replace "homosexuals" with "blacks" and "the KKK" with "SOCE" and you have something like this: "We love blacks. We welcome blacks into our business. We even hire blacks. However, we support the work of the KKK. The KKK gives us an answer to the problem of blacks in our society. Therefore, we take millions of dollars from our earnings and give it to the KKK."

Do not fool yourself into thinking comparing SOCE to the KKK is hyperbole. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is the organization that is largely responsible for dismantling the KKK through legal battles. They maintain a list of organizations that are the modern day equivalent to the KKK. On their list you will find most, if not all of the SOCE organizations that Chick-FIl-A supports with annual million dollar contributions, directly from their profits.

One last thing to consider. SOCE is killing 6 innocent homosexuals a day in the USA. Even at its most virile and disgusting stages, the KKK never had such a "successful" record of torture and terror.

I guess you're missing the point -- funding campaigns against interracial marriage would not be "responsible." It would be rightly seen as funding bigotry. If Dan Cathy wanted to protect "traditional" marriage by funding couple's counseling or working to end no-fault divorce it would be hard to argue against. He is not acting to protect "traditional" marriage - he is acting to attack same-sex marriage.

One would rightly be called corporate responsibility. The other is funding hate organizations.

Morality is composed of human, social and spiritual values, none of which can be measured in dollars. Morality has three positions: moral, one knows what it is and does it; immoral, one knows what it is and doesn't do it; and amoral, one never considers morality. There can be no better example of amoral than one for whom dollars are the final and deciding values considered before decision and action. The only value considered by a corporation is dollars. When a corporation provides some social service or value it is only because this action improves their real or potential dollar profits. In a truly democratic (where the political system is not in constant stalemate) and national government the voters vote on the basis of human, social and spiritual values (moral or amoral) and expect their elected representative to reflect those moral or amoral positions. Therefore, uncorrupted by money, the national democratic political system has the capability to be moral and being national, and as all corporations are chartered by government, national government has the capability to also force corporations to be moral. This is why corporations and the top 10% who control them hate democratic governments, they are making money fist over paw being amoral (the easy way out) and have no wish to change and even less interest in being forced to consider morality which might reduce dollar profits. The fact that corporations and the top 10% are willing to "invest" billions of dollars (much more than they spend on social or moral values) corrupting democratic government and stalemating it whenever possible is testament to the fact that democratic national governments, and in the USA the states in some circumstances can force corporations to be socially responsible and act morally. These are billionaires and their corporate fronts who wouldn't spend a penny unless there was a dollar in it for them. The fact that they spend billions a year corrupting the democratic process is proof that unmolested and un-stalemated democratic national government can and likely will force them to be socially responsible and act morally. The only inherent obligation a corporation has is to maximize profits. The only reasons for corporate socially beneficial actions are to enhance profits; and any executive pushing for a socially beneficial action which may lessen max. corporate dollar profits would be quickly run out of the corporation. The comments by Chick-fil-A president was a "personal" moral statement made through his corporation, and which by the way sky-rocketed his sales. This was not a corporate "moral" action or stance, at worst it had nothing to do with Chick-fil-A corporately and at best it had the unintended consequence of blowing corporate sales through the roof. As Bob Dylan once said "money doesn't talk, it swears" and corporate profits are measured in terms of dollars not socially responsible acts.

By "refusing to attack the roots of his belief" I suspect you mean those who are adverse to being religious bigots. This is one of the most obnoxious features of the Gay Lobby -- their snide, intolerant and insidious hatred of others. Mr. Cathy has his beliefs. He interprets his faith according to the lights God gives him. In doing so he may, in the eyes of God, err. If this is so, then a merciful God will set him straight the other side of the grave.

But, what neither Mr. Cathy nor God need are others who are quite certain they are in a position to interpret correctly the tenets of the Abrahamic religions. Mr. Cathy obviously does not believe in slavery -- and if you have evidence that he does you should cite it. Otherwise, why not try shutting the hell up on this red herring?

Whether God abhors homosexuality is unknown to me. (I doubt He does -- but that is my opinion.) Mr. Cathy has to read and understand the Bible as best he can. Again, he may err -- it is even possible that, from time to time, you err yourself.

As for translations of translations, or "physical or philosophical contradictions in the Bible," not to mention its "glaring omissions," just who are you to set the rest of the world straight? Voltaire tried this sort of thing three centuries ago and people are still reading the Bible and the Koran. Maybe Voltaire lacked your panache.

" In or politically correct society people (wrongfully) assume everyone should be entitled to believe what they want no matter how illogical or hateful it is. That simply isn't the case." Here is a news flash, Pal -- that is EXACTLY the case. The First Amendment guarantees it. An endless stream of SCOTUS decisions reinforce it. If the gay brief is based on the belief that people are not allowed to "believe what they want" then to hell with the gays.

I'll close with another news item. The Abahamic religions deal with both earthly and transcendent issues of unimaginable significance. Gays, one way or the other, are nothing but a pimple on the butt of a gorilla so far as these faiths are concerned. The "straight" part of the world has a lot more important things to worry about, write about, read about, ponder and pray about than gays and lesbians. Don't overestimate your own importance.

"Matters of moral truth aside, what's the difference between buying a little social justice with your coffee and buying a little Christian traditionalism with your chicken? There is no difference."

CSR is about the practices of companies, not the beliefs of their owners. Buying fair-trade certified coffee, for example, is about being a responsible consumer and asking companies to avoid acting in ways that are harmfl to society or to the environment. In the case of fair-trade coffee, or chocolate, or diamonds, etc, there is a clear dichotomy: either you are selling/purchasing a product that is available because of the exploitation of poor farmers or kidnapped children, thus allowing the enterprise to continue, or you are not. Buying or not buying CFA sandwiches is more indirect, not connected to the product; it means that you are supporting a business whose CEO funds anti-gay groups, but the actual sandwich you are buying is not comparable to the coffee used in the example.

Anyway, if business owners can run their businesses any way they want, why can't consumers be informed to purchase from whichever business they want? Businesses are societal actors that can have impacts just as what we normally accept to be democratic institutions do. And when we make a purchase, in a way we are making a vote that doesn't count for much individually, but may in a group.

Corporate social responsibility? I can't see that this ruckus has anything to do with it. The storm of controversy around Chick-fil-a resulted from statements and donations made by its CEO who is a committed evangelical Christian and who personally and vocally opposes gay marriage. Isn't that his right? From what I can tell, the company does not apply his moral views in its hiring and operations (sabbath and holiday closings aside). My teenage daughters tell me that there are several of their gay schoolmates who work at our local resaturant. I would rather work in a fairly run business with a bigoted CEO than in a business where the management professes to color/gender/orientation blindness while quietly discriminating against the "undesirables".

This controversy would not exist were it not for the protests made by politicians and activist groups on the West Coast and in other big cities who want to bolster their political bases and counter demonstrations by "Christian" groups who oppose gay rights. The result is a win-win for both sides: the gay rights groups can look like they are fighting the good fight and Chick-fil-a has seen a massive spike in their sales. This reminds me of the movie "Dragnet" where the televangelist and the porn king have a secret agreement to publicly oppose each other in order to boost their respective magazine sales and church attendance.

In other words it is just another case of much sound and fury, signifying nothing duting the usual summer news lull.

I believe in equal rights and protections for homosexuals in a free and democratic society that is not a theocratic state. I also believe in the Biblical teaching that marriage is between one man and one women. I guess everyone (both sides of the debate) will hate someone like me for making those two statements, and want me to be censured, despite my free and democratic right to do so.

Virtually all media mistakenly assume that Chick-fil-A's objectionability stems only from a recent isolated remark. There's been a gay boycott against Chick-fil-A for a while--well before the CEO Dan Cathy's public comments. It's normal for special-interest groups--Christian groups included--to boycott businesses for their policies, affiliations or donations.

Same-sex marriage isn't even the main issue. Dan Cathy donates to organizations like Exodus International which is a Christian group that exists only to attempt to change homosexuals' (including minors') sexual orientation, or failing that, their lifestyle. And he donates to the Family Research Council who in 2010 spent $25,000 lobbying Congress not to sanction Uganda for a new law providing life imprisonment and death for "homosexuality". (I put the word in quotes because the Ugandan law is peculiarly no more specific than that.) Other groups he donates to lobby against anti-discrimination measures and advocate the recriminalization of sodomy.

The ruckus began after some major-city mayors threatened to keep Chick-fil-A from installing or expanding in their cities. I don't know if the mayors knew Chick-fil-A was objectionable before Dan Cathy's remark. Boston's mayor Thomas Menino didn't seem to in his letter to Cathy. Whether they knew or not, their incompetent response has severely worked against the longstanding and quiet--and reasonable--gay boycott.